Budget Cuts Don't Block $370K Gym For U.S. Court Employees

At a time when governments everywhere are struggling to reduce spending, at least one federal construction project in Connecticut has emerged intact and complete — a $370,000 gymnasium for a select group of federal court employees.

The 2,632-square-foot "fitness center" opened last month in the century-old Richard C. Lee U.S. Courthouse on Church Street. Federal records show it cost $307,610 to build and another $61,935 to equip. No one associated officially with the project will describe it or the equipment it contains in detail.

The cost is being shared by two local agencies of the federal judiciary — the office of the clerk for the federal judicial district of Connecticut and the office of probation and pretrial services. Both are under pressure to cut costs. The administrative offices for the federal judiciary urged all its subsidiary units early last year to freeze hiring, kill employee raises and prepare for even deeper cuts.

In June, the probation office in New Haven abolished four administrative support positions. The clerk's office has been evaluating its staffing requirements for three years.

But the directors of both offices said the gym has had no effect on personnel because of the way the federal government plans and implements budgets.

Scott Chin, who runs federal probation in Connecticut, said he would have argued against the gym if it had cost jobs. "That's just not what we are about," he said.

People with regular business in the courthouse — including federal employees who haven't seen the gym, won't be allowed to use it and are worried about their jobs — have been whispering about it for months as if it were a judiciary Manhattan Project. Tabora recently declined to allow a reporter to visit the gym because, she said, it is not in a public part of the courthouse.

It was built in the basement, behind multiple layers of security, including its own electronic key card access system.

'Highly Confidential'

Apart from back corridor chatter, no one seems particularly comfortable talking about the gym.

When asked about the construction work in New Haven, a regional judicial administrator in New York, whose office approved the project, complained that someone had provided a reporter with "highly confidential information."

Connecticut's chief federal judge, Alvin W. Thompson, would not take telephone calls about the gym or respond to a letter with written questions.

When Tabora received the same written questions as part of a Freedom of Information Act request, her initial response was that the federal courts are exempt from FOIA requirements, "and I am unaware of any other applicable statute or regulation that would require disclosure of the requested information. However, I would like to respond to your questions as best I can."

Tabora provided an overview of the gym project, including how it fits in the context of other recent and less costly construction and repair work in and around the courthouse. But she was unwilling to provide records that would elaborate on some specific aspects of the project, including what equipment the government got for nearly $62,000. She said the gym has free weights and exercise machines.

The General Services Administration, the bureaucracy that acts as the federal government's landlord, contracted to build the gym and, in response to a Freedom of Information request, provided limited information about rubberized floors, individual shower stalls and mirrored walls in the exercise room. It reported, among other things, that a recessed, wall-mounted, sensor-activated, Hydro-boost water bottle filling station was "deleted from the scope of the work."

General Services records also show that the gym comes with men's and women's locker rooms and a space for aerobics.

Training And Tactics

Tabora said the gym was built, in large part, so that about 42 federal probation officers assigned to Connecticut can "meet their fitness and defensive training requirements." The officers have jobs that bring them into frequent contact with potentially violent criminals, and they are required every year to complete 40 hours of annual defensive tactics training.

Until the second week of December, when General Services said the gym opened, the probation officers had to find places on their own to work on training and tactics as a group.

"They often scramble to find suitable available space for this training and must transport their own floor mats and training equipment to the selected location," Tabora said in a letter. "The new training/fitness center will provide a safe and secure environment for our probation officers."